Intel Prepares Two New Z68 LGA 1155 Motherboards

Entry level solutions meant to replace previous P67-powered models

Intel DZ68AF LGA 1155 motherboard

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Intel will soon update its motherboard lineup to feature two new solutions for LGA 1155 Sandy Bridge processors that are based on the company's Z68 chipset and are destined to take the place of the some previous P67 models.

Intel's latest creations are dubbed the DZ68PL and DZ68AF, and VR-Zone managed to get into the possession of a couple of pictures depicting these cards.

Starting with the DZ68PL, this is a rather peculiar Z68 motherboard as it comes without any of the video outputs that are characteristic to Intel's chipset, while it also doesn't seem to feature support for the Quick Sync technology.

The explanation for this is quite simple, as Intel has jut modified slightly the PCB of one of its previous motherboards based on the P67 PCH and swapped this for the Z68 in order to keep R&D costs to a minimum.

Moving to the second LGA 1155 solution Intel introduced today, the DZ68AF, this also follows a similar concept, but uses the micro-ATX form factor and it includes a single PCI Express x16 slot, and four DIMM sockets for installing up to 32GB of system memory.

The rest of the expansion options include two x1 PCI Express slots and a 32-bit legacy PCI slot as well as three SATA 3Gbps ports.

The rear I/O consists of six USB 2.0 ports, a pair of USB 3.0 ports, an eSATA connector, a FireWire port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, 7.1-channel audio with optical S/PDIF out, but we still don't get any sort of video outputs.

Intel hasn't provided us with any information regarding the price of these two new Z68 boards. However, judging by their feature set, these are expected to retail for less than what Asus, Gigabyte or MSI asks for their own similar motherboard designs.

The release date is also unknown, but VR-Zone states this should become available shortly.